Authentic mobile application for enhancing the value of mobile learning in organic chemistry and its pedagogical implications

Abstract

This article discusses the application of a prototype educational mobile application for higher education, known as the Organic Chemistry Reaction Application (OCRA), which has been designed to run on any mobile device with touch-screen commands. OCRA allows its users to create their own organic molecules using hydrogen, carbon, oxygen, and halogen atoms. Users can use the touch-screen feature to demonstrate the organic reaction mechanism explicitly through an electron-moving technique, which is used to conceptually visualise the mechanistic steps in organic reaction mechanisms. This enables the users to understand the macroscopic and microscopic concepts of organic reaction mechanisms. OCRA provides a gamelike setting with the objective of acquiring correct answers through achieving specific goals. It uses a touch-screen feature to demonstrate the organic reaction mechanism explicitly, while the electron-moving technique is employed to conceptually visualise the mechanistic steps in the organic reaction mechanism. OCRA is used as an alternative tool to aid learning and understanding of organic reaction mechanisms. As a user-controlled tool, OCRA provides convenience and flexibility as well as being capable of enhancing a user’s confidence in learning organic reaction mechanisms. Hence, OCRA is a practical example of an application that has been innovatively designed to enhance the value of learning in the mobile education context. The next challenge is to implement a generic pedagogical model underpinning the design of any mobile application for educational purposes to replace traditional pedagogical approaches.